The Gulf blog

Kuwaitis cancel Sri Lankan celebrations 25, April 2010

Kuwaiti Islamists marched onto the Jahra sports stadium field and cancelled Sri Lankan celebrations. The fact that men and women were in the stadium enjoying themselves with – brace yourself – music, was just too much for them.

The 5000 Sri Lankans along with the Sri Lankan Ambassador to Kuwait were forced to leave. Curiously enough, the Kuwaiti police maintained that the Sri Lankans had the correct permits and did not break any laws.

This strikes me once again as the subsuming of the rule of law to ‘a Sheikh’ with a God complex, who doesn’t care for the rules but believes that what he says needs to go. This is similar to the Emirati who didn’t want alcohol in any food preparation in Dubai who was subsequently overruled and the Qatari who wanted to force reciprocity from the US, the EU and some Asian countries in issuing passports for citizens on arrival at national airports. Here again, this individual decision went against the grain and the backlash caused an embarrassing about-turn for the Qatari government.

With the Sri Lankan issue, however, there is no lobby to talk and agitate against this decision. As ever, these people who to all intents and purposes make the country work, are treated with utter disdain.